Please excuse any errors today, I've been out of the office for a couple days with Fish & Wildlife meetings, and I've only got a few hours to get this done. If the pictures are more or less blurry than usual you can blame or credit my staff, they're helping out even more than usual today.
Got in some pretty exciting specialty cichlids this week, including rift lake stuff, some west Africans and a Madagascar fish. The green-spot bleekeri are my favorites of the new fish. This is a Madagascar endemic. While the island is off the coast of Africa the fish are very different than African cichlids. All the Paratilapia are similar to Central Americans in their behavior. They get pretty good size (10"+) and are relatively aggressive predators. I've got them all individually housed but they're fresh from ponds so the fins are going to be rough. This green spot variaty is not the small-spotted Fianarantsoa Green that's been in the trade. These have much bigger blue/green spots. They're not crazy expensive and are super nice so I think they'll do well even as a summertime fish.
Got a new batch of hybrid 'redstratus cichlids'. This is a rostratus cross, and it's shaped a lot like the rostratus. Also shows a lot of blue/green rostratus color, but doesn't have to be a foot long to color up. In addition to the blue/green they have nice red/orange horizontal stripes and a flush in the chest. Really neat fish that you're not going to see anywhere else.
And sticking with the cichlid theme, I've got some west African buffalo heads, both the standard type and the tinanti 'skinny buffalo heads'. These are rapid-dwelling fish from the Congo river. They live in high current areas and hop around the bottom like a goby. The males on the standard buffalo heads get a pretty big hump on their head, hence the name. The tinantis are similar but a slimmer and from even higher current areas.
Please give a call if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Joe Hiduke Sales Manager Nautilus
Hybrid Redstratus Cichlid - a fair amount of variance
Tinanti Buffalo Head
Tetras and Relatives
Albino glowlights are back in stock this week and pretty good size. This is a neat color variety that looks a little washed out in our tanks but when they're displayed on dark gravel they look really good. Standard glowlights are nice and running big. Bloodfins are in stock and look pretty good. Some other Florida fish that look good include longfin serpaes, orange von rios, really big longfin white skirts, huge candy canes, longfin blushers, Colombian tetras, and penguin tetras.
Longfin GloFish are still huge. I almost wish I had gone with the 'Christmas in July' promo for our certified retailers instead of the patriotic GloFish package as the green longfins are gigantic.
Some of the far-east farm fish that look good include big glass bloodfins, albino Congo tetras, black emperors, ember tetras, and blind cave tetras. Cardinals are particularly nice too, a little bigger than normal and very bright.
Got in some new hujeta rocket gar this week. These are also far-east farm-raised fish. Unlike the wild-caught gar/pike characins these should take to pellets or other prepared foods. They're not real big, around 2-3", but they look great.
Got in another batch of diptail pencils. A small, peaceful and unusual fish, they work in a community tank and they're cheap. Also have a few ruby tetras left, a few rainbow emperors, and lots of gold tetras. Still have great sized medium silver dollars too, very good value.
Longfin Black Skirts
White BLushing Tetra
Rosy Tetra
Rocket Gar
Barbs, Danios & Relatives
Medium tiger barbs are very pretty, with nice red on their fins and noses. The larges are about the same size as the mediums today. Rosy barbs look pretty good and red glass barbs still look great. Zebra danios are huge, some of the nicest ones I've seen. Gold white clouds, giant danios, and scissortails are looking good too.
Restocked on a ton of galaxy rasboras this week. They're small but you can tell that they're galaxy rasboras. Still have some very nice red panda barbs as well.
LG Tiger Barb
Zebra Danios - too fast and healthy to photograph well
Rosy Barbs
Gold White Clouds
Livebearers
Firecracker swords are back in stock from Hong Kong. They're good size and super deep red. Bigger and redder than the vampire swords (which are also very nice). Marigold swords are still the best Florida swords.
Still have very nice bumble bee platies, always one of the most popular varieties. Some other platies that stand out include dawn platies, red twin-bars, candy cane mickeys, gold twin-bars, and great looking gold calico highfin platies.
Blue panda dumbos are probably the best looking guppy, although they are are small tail type. Red tux are outstanding too. Some other guppies that stand out this week include pink tux, green dumbos, and turquoise blue-tails.
Black lyretail sphenops are really nice, with big long tails. Gold sphenops are big too.
Firecracker Sword
Red Tux Guppy
Platy Sunset
Black Lyretail Sphenops
New World Cichlids
Not a lot new here but there's a few things that stand out. Medium brasiliensis pearly eartheaters are still one of the best looking fish here. They're a bit oversized and showing great color. Remember, this is one of the most aggressive eartheaters, a lot more like a Central American in temperament. For peaceful 'Geos' I do still have some threadfin heckeli. The regulars are oversized and a better value but the 3" are a little bigger.
Pink convicts are decent size. 'Electric blue carpintis' are the best value of the small common cichlids. Firemouths are tiny, but jacks are acceptable.
For less common stuff, I still have very well started grammodes, nice little snook, argentea, and a few big tubas that are probably ready to start a family.
Got a couple more tanks of red devil angels this week but they look closer to standard koi angels every time I get more in. Got in a handful of large veil angels and they look fantastic. Still have the wild dumerili types too, they're big and super hardy.
Wild oscars are in stock again and they look great. The pattern looks a little more intricate than most of the standard red tigers. The ones I've had in the past get a really neat labyrinth like appearance when they're 3"+. Still have a couple of gorgeous true parrots too, been here over a month and super stable.
Back in stock with far-east blue tiger parrots and blood parrots. The blue tigers are very small, the blood parrots are big and nice. Got in more flowerhorns, limited numbers of EB acaras, and some gold discus. Still have a few snow white discus, some red fujis, and lots of nice 4" red turqs.
Medium Brasiliensis
EB Ram
EB Carpintis
Tuba Cichlid
Large Veil Angels
Wild Colombian Oscars
Blue Tiger Parrots - great color, but very mixed in size
Chili Red Oscar
Old World Cichlids
Nice mix of crazy hybrid stuff and uncommon pure stuff for new Africans. Refreshed the medium mix peacocks. Plenty of 'pea-haps' in the mix too giving it a neat look, and I'll probably have some dragonblood types in the mix next week. I also got a larger size of this mix with great color. The jungle haps, OB jungle haps, large livingstoni, and OB red empress all look great as well.
Got in a few new Victorian haps. I have new zebra obliquidens, one of the most unique looking fish from the rift lakes. Gold with thick black bands, with males getting a ton of red in the chest. I also have a new Uganda fire haps. Like most of the Vics, a small precosious breeder, where the males will show color even as small as ~2". Black velvets are in stock at a medium size which is only slightly bigger than the regulars I had last week. They have great color, nearly all male and solid black already.
For mbunas, I've got a new avanti yellow-tail zebra. One of the better looking less common species in the trade, they have plenty of color even when they're small. Also have new Likoma elongatus, red zebras, cobalt zebras, and albino auratus.
Juli transcriptus Gombi are in stock this week. If you're around my age you probably remember when these and the Kipili regani first became available. Pretty well started with nice clean bands, this is a great looking fish. And much like brichardis, they'll fill a tank with multiple generations if you're patient. Got in new orange compressiceps as well. Helianthus sunflower Lamps get a little bigger every week, they're showing great color. Still have the Karambe moori and Maswa duboisi, both great size for Tropheus.
Large Assorted Male Peacocks/Peahaps
Zebra Obliques
Uganda Fire Haps
Avanti Yellow-Tail Zebra
Albino Comp.
Med Black Velvet
Gombi Transcriptus
Orange Compressiceps
Leleupi
Catfish and Loaches
Don't have any new plecos this week but I have lots of plecos. The L240/007 galaxy toothnose vampire plecos are still the best looking pleco here. The smalls look great, the larges look even better. Plenty of nice green phantoms in a couple sizes. I have, I think, four pieces of big blue phantoms, and lots of little 1.5" blue phantoms. Size on the Colombian orange seams sucks just as bad as the little blue phantoms, but both of them look great if you're OK with little fish. Colombian snowballs and zebras are nice too.
Your best bet for cories this week is the arcuatus skunk cories. They're big and been here a week, seem to be pretty solid. Gold/greens are pretty good sized too. I have new punctatus that look good but they're small and might not be ready to go by Monday. I did get a ton of pygmaeus, ask your rep how they look on Monday.
Colombian sharks came in very good size, big and fat. Bumble bee cats are very mixed, but they range from OK size to great size. Banjo cats look good. Pictus cats get a little bigger every week, they're not terrible right now. Still have a few talking cats, jaguar duckbills, zamoras, royal farlowellas, and granulosus cats too. Also have a very few of the Asian pygmy BB cats from last week.
The little tank-raised longfin bushynose got bigger this week, although not consistently bigger. The 1-1.5" mix is pretty well in that size range now instead of all under 1". Indo tank-raised Syno petricola are growing, the look really good right now. Florida 3" eupterus are oversized and on special this week, very good value.
Restocked on dojo and gold dojo loaches. The golds got a fair bit smaller, and the XL is quite a bit bigger than the regular size this week. Should be in OK shape on clown loaches. Sewellia loaches are very big, they look great. Borneo suckers are back in stock but pretty small.
Adolfi Cory are still here, doing well in hard water
Galaxias Pleco
Colombian Shark
Tank-Raised Syno petricola (Indo fish, so maybe better referred to as Syno 'petricola')
Sewellia Loach look much better than borneo sucker
Other Fish & Stuff
Dragonfish are in stock this week. AKA violet gobies, these are long, skinny, eel-like estuary fish. They get pretty good size (12"+) and have big mouths, but they're unlikely to eat anything other than inverts like worms and shrimp that they scoop out of the substrate. They'll do best with a bit of salt in their water.
Speaking of gobies, the peacock gudgeons are fantastic. They're either getting bigger every week or more crew is dropping mediums into the regular tank. Either way, take advantage of it and get some awesome super colorful gobies.
Signifer rainbows will work great with the peacock gudgeons in a biotope. This batch is very good size, with lots of color on the fins and clean black and white fin edges. This is one of the smaller rainbows (a blue-eye Pseudomugil type). They're small but super active, and are always showing off to their girls. Featherfin rainbows look good too. For the bigger rainbows, boesmanis are still small but have some color. Turquoise are small and not showing much color. Kamakas are looking good this week, pretty good size.
Florida gar are still in stock. This time 10-12", and no I can't get smaller ones.
A few other odds and ends that look good include ghost sharks, gardneri killis, 6" orandas, Asian needle gar, large panda garras, 8" royal clown knives, arrowhead puffers, delhezi bichirs, and brown ghost knives.
If you need shrimp this week your options are black coco shrimp and whatever comes in Monday. The black cocos are nice, and they're also the only shrimp I have more than a dozen of. I have tons of assassin snails, and they're on sale this week. Also have slightly less limited (I hope) numbers of mystery snails. The ivory are the biggest, with blues and gold both pretty big as well.
Dragonfish
Peacock Gudgeon
Signifer Rainbows
Blue Gourami
Florida Gar
Assassin Snails
SALTWATER/CORALS
The Saltwater stock-list gets sent out on MONDAY afternoon.
In saltwater, we offer tons of top-of-the-line corals. If you need really nice frags to sell for $10-15, we've got you covered. If you want a $400 show piece unique Australian brain corals, we've got that too. Tons of the coral frags are aquacultured in-house and are named lineage pieces of various SPS and LPS. Import frags that are MADE in-house are also available, and are great options to get slightly bigger pieces that customers want like torches, hammers, blastos, acans, zoas, etc.
Effective February 1, 2019 Pictures for freshwater DOA claims are REQUIRED. DOA credits will no longer be approved if there are not accompanying pictures. This is to see the bag sizes, water quality at arrival, if heat/ice packs are present, etc.
Just snap a picture of the bag with your cell phone as you're putting the bags in the tank to float and that will work and should only take literally 10 seconds per bag that contains losses. These will help us to figure out why they arrived DOA and how to prevent it in the future. It is preferred that you email the pictures to your rep, but you can also text them into your rep as well. Thank you for your understanding and assistance.
SALTWATER DOA POLICY: All Saltwater DOA need a clear picture of the fish out of the bag on a cooler lid from your shipment and emailed to your sales rep the day or day after your shipment arrives. Any fish lost in shipment will be credited if you follow that easy instruction. Fish that die overnight are not creditable unless they arrive in very rough condition (basically dead) and you notify us of the condition with a clear picture of the issue the day it arrives.
